A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
